3 LING
 
 THE ROEBLING MONUMENT. 
 
 The monument has a total height of 15 feet, 7 
 inches. This is exclusive of the concrete base, 
 which is built 4 feet, 6 inches, underground. The 
 stonework supporting the statue is 9 feet high and 
 the statue measures 6 feet, 7 inches. The figure 
 is modeled in a sitting position. Had it been cast 
 in a standing posture, it would have reached a 
 height of exactly 8 feet. The statue is made of 
 bronze and was cast in the plant of the Gorham 
 Manufacturing Company in Providence, R. I. 
 The cast was made from a clay model designed 
 by William Couper, the sculptor, in his studio, 
 207 East Seventeenth street, New York city. The 
 pedestal is built of red Swedish granite. 
 
 On the right side of this granite pedestal is a 
 bronze panel containing a reproduction in relief of 
 the first railroad suspension bridge built over the 
 Niagara. On the left side is another panel con- 
 taining a replica, also in relief, of the Brooklyn 
 Bridge, designed by Mr. Roebling.
 
 JOHN A. ROEBLING 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF THE CEREMONIES 
 
 AT THE UNVEILING OF A 
 
 MONUMENT TO HIS 
 
 MEMORY. 
 
 TRoebling press 
 1908
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 While many monuments have been erected in honor of 
 those who have achieved distinction in statecraft, who have 
 led victorious armies upon hard fought battlefields, or who 
 by the exercise of exceptional literary gifts have appealed 
 to world wide sympathies and affections, the sculptor's art 
 has been seldom employed to commemorate the virtues of 
 men whose lives were spent in scientific and industrial 
 pursuits. 
 
 It has been said that a great engineer dealing with mate- 
 rial things, and bending them to his will, leaves behind him 
 monuments in the works built upon his designs. This is 
 true, but while an imposing structure may give evidence of 
 the genius of the builder, it suggests but little of the man 
 himself, and it is therefore proper that those who deem 
 him worthy, should give expression in material form to the 
 esteem in which they hold his memory. 
 
 To the small number of monuments erected in honor of 
 eminent engineers, there has recently been added, at Tren- 
 ton, N. J., a statue of John A. Roebling. Mr. Roebling 
 was not a native of Trenton, nor of the country in which 
 the greater part of his life was spent. Yet so important 
 was his work and so strong the impression left by his per- 
 sonality, it is not strange that the people of his adopted city 
 desired to place in their principal park, a statue portraying 
 the man as he looked in the prime of his active life. 
 
 A committee of citizens took the matter in hand and 
 solicited popular subscriptions which resulted in contribu- 
 tions from a large number of the people of Trenton, who 
 had either known Mr. Roebling or appreciated the bene- 
 fit of his services to their community.
 
 The monument was designed by Mr. William Couper, 
 of New York, under whose direction there was produced a 
 striking likeness of the great engineer. It was unveiled on 
 June 30th, 1908, in the presence of over 15,000 people, 
 among whom were the Governor of New Jersey, the repre- 
 sentatives of the State in the United States Senate and a 
 number of other distinguished guests. 
 
 Throughout the city of Trenton there was a general dis- 
 play of flags, the occasion being officially recognized, locally, 
 by the closing of the City Hall and Court House at noon and 
 the attendance of the City and County officials in a body. 
 
 The City of Miilhausen, Germany, the birthplace of 
 Mr. Roebling, sent an artistic copper wreath as its tribute 
 to his memory. 
 
 Notable features of the dedication ceremonies were a 
 concert by Winkler's Second Regiment Band, singing by 
 the United German Singing Societies of Trenton under 
 the direction of Dr. Carl Hoffman, and addresses by Hon. 
 Edward C. Stokes, former Governor of New Jersey, and 
 Mr. Henry D. Estabrook, of New York, General Counsel 
 for the Western Union Telegraph Company. 
 
 Prior to the unveiling of the monument, 6500 men, 
 employees of the industry founded by John A. Roebling, 
 and since his death conducted by his sons, marched from 
 the works, through the streets of Trenton to Cadwalader 
 Park. It is interesting to note in this connection that in 
 the year 1908 occurs the sixtieth anniversary of the removal 
 by Mr. Roebling of his plant to Trenton from Saxonburg, 
 Pa., where eight years before he had begun the manufac- 
 ture of wire rope. 
 
 Mr. Roebling was the first to make wire rope in this 
 country, and, as the market developed, he found that it 
 could not be conveniently supplied from the location of the
 
 original factory. It was, therefore, decided to move to 
 Trenton, where preparations were made to manufacture 
 wire rope in larger quantities than could be produced with 
 the limited facilities employed at Saxonburg. As an aid to 
 this, there was soon added to the rope shop a mill for draw- 
 ing wire, from which wire was supplied to the trade as well 
 as for stranding into rope. 
 
 Wire has been made from bars of metal for many cen- 
 turies, but sixty years ago it was far from being the 
 important product it has since become, and there was then 
 little to indicate the many uses to which in a few years it 
 would be applied. Mr. Roebling, by his work at Saxon- 
 burg had shown the merit of wire cables, but their use was 
 still confined within comparatively narrow limits, and there 
 was nothing to correspond with the present demand for 
 wire for mechanical purposes. 
 
 When the factory was built at Trenton, there were no 
 elevators raised and lowered by wire ropes in lofty buildings, 
 and modern methods of mining, quarrying and lumbering, 
 depending upon the operation of wire cables were unknown. 
 The telegraph was in use, but a few miles of wire were 
 sufficient to carry the occasional messages for which the 
 mails were thought too slow, and years were yet to pass 
 before wire cables should lie upon the ocean's bed, flashing 
 the news of widely separated continents. No human voice 
 had ever sent its vibrations across miles of space, and the 
 millions of pounds of metal now annually transformed into 
 threads of wire to transmit electrical energy then lay buried 
 in unsought, undiscovered mines. 
 
 The latter half of the nineteenth century was destined 
 to be marked by a rapid development of the resources of 
 the country, and by a progress in mechanical arts greater 
 than the world had ever known before.
 
 This development and progress called for the exercise 
 with ever broadening scope of the talents of the inventor 
 and engineer, and such talents, combined with the judge- 
 ment of a practical business man, were possessed in a high 
 degree by the wire rope maker of Trenton. 
 
 He was not the only manufacturer of his time who had 
 added to the capacity of his factory. Old manufacturing 
 establishments were being enlarged ; new ones were spring- 
 ing into existence, and with the growth of the manufac- 
 turing industry there came a demand for an increased 
 supply of fuel, and the need of improved methods 
 of mining and transportation. 
 
 Rich veins of coal were located in the mountains, the 
 strata running far above the valley roads. The demand for 
 additional fuel could be supplied by the development of 
 these mines, but the transportation of coal to convenient 
 shipping points presented a difficult problem for solution. 
 This Mr. Roebling helped to solve, by equipping with wire 
 rope inclined planes, extending along the mountain side from 
 the opening of the mine to the valley below. 
 
 As an aid in building suspension bridges, he designed 
 endless wire rope cableways, which, continuously moving 
 upon wheels located at each end of a bridge span, carried 
 across wires to form the supporting cables. It was a short 
 step from these to cableways, spanning ravines and moun- 
 tain gorges, carrying coal and other minerals where old 
 methods of transportation would have been impracticable. 
 
 Each successful application of his product enhanced the 
 reputation of the wire rope manufacturer and increased the 
 demand for his services. 
 
 The year following his settlement at Trenton, gold was 
 discovered in California, awakening the country to an 
 appreciation of the possibilities of the West, and providing
 
 an incentive for the investment of capital in the extension 
 of Eastern railways. But rivers must be spanned to carry 
 their rails, and transportation companies, operating lines of 
 steamboats upon important waterways, bitterly opposed 
 plans to build railroad bridges with piers threatening to ob- 
 struct navigation. 
 
 If the Niagara river could be bridged there would be no 
 conflict with steamship lines, but the natural conditions 
 which prevented navigation made impracticable the con- 
 struction of piers in the stream. Prominent engineers who 
 inspected the site expressed the opinion that a bridge could 
 not be built, and it seemed as though the railway must halt 
 in its course toward the West. 
 
 The one man of the time to present a solution of the 
 problem was the pioneer wire rope manufacturer, whose 
 designs of suspension bridges had been met with ridicule 
 and opposition. 
 
 By force of argument and logic of mathematical demon- 
 stration, he gained converts to his belief that he could safe- 
 ly extend the railway across Niagara. His design was finally 
 adopted, and on March 16, 1855, a span, 800 feet in length, 
 carried by wire cables 245 feet above the whirlpool rapids, 
 supported the first railroad train to cross a suspension bridge. 
 
 The following year witnessed the beginning of a span 
 200 feet longer than that at Niagara, to cross the Ohio 
 river at Cincinnati, and then Mr. Roebling proposed what 
 was to be the crowning achievement of his career, a plan 
 to connect the cities of New York and Brooklyn by a bridge 
 with a river span of 1600 feet, supported by cables, placed 
 high enough above the water to enable ships with their 
 towering masts to sail beneath. This project was advanced 
 in the fifties, but it was not until ten years later that the 
 plan was adopted.
 
 8 
 
 The designer of the Brooklyn bridge did not live to see 
 its completion, losing his life July 22nd, 1869, as the result 
 of an accident at the very inception of the work. The bridge, 
 completed under the direction of his son, Washington, was 
 opened for traffic in 1883 and has been continuously in use 
 ever since. 
 
 John A. Roebling came to America a stranger to its life 
 and customs, without influential friends and with little 
 capital other than character, energy, and courage. He be- 
 gan the manufacture of an unknown article, for which he 
 created a market, aiding in so doing the development 
 of the nation's resources and laying the foundation of one of 
 the world's great industries. He met a condition arising 
 from the growth of his adopted country, by proposing to 
 carry new highways across rivers upon bridges, the like of 
 which had not been known before. 
 
 There arose about him a chorus of protest, voiced by 
 engineers more eminent than he, who denounced his plan as 
 visionary and impracticable. With courage undaunted, a 
 persistence not to be repelled, he insisted that he had dis- 
 covered a principle of mechanics worthy of acceptance and 
 silenced his critics by building those great bridges which 
 stand as beautiful and imposing monuments to his memory. 
 
 To these monuments there has been added the statue 
 erected at Trenton, the tribute of the people of the city 
 where he lived and wrought so well. 
 
 The following pages contain the programme of the cere- 
 monies at the dedication of the monument, the speakers' 
 addresses, biographical sketches of the memorial committee 
 and comments of the press upon the occasion. 
 
 ALFRED N. BARBER.
 
 Programme
 
 Programme of Exercises. 
 
 MUSIC ''American Overture," . Winkler's Band 
 INVOCATION, . . Rev. W. Strother Jones 
 
 "Der Tag des Harm," . { 
 
 Under Direction of DR. CARL HOFFMANN 
 
 UNVEILING OF STATUE, by Miss Emily M. Roebling 
 
 INTRODUCTION OF ORATOR, Hon. E. C. Stokes 
 
 ADDRESS, ... Mr. Henry D. Estabrook 
 
 "Star Spangled Banner," . { ""^fS^ '" 
 Under Direction of DR. CARL HOFFMANN 
 
 INTRODUCTION OF SCULPTOR, > H T H RI 
 MR. WILLIAM COUPER, \ Hon> J " H - Blackwe11 
 
 Music-Coronation March, } Winkler's Band 
 
 from The Prophet, )
 
 Addresses
 
 Address of Hon. E. C. Stokes. 
 
 IS scene reminds us that posterity is not forgetful; 
 it ever recalls the greatness of its ancestors. We 
 have our Fourth of July, our Memorial Day, our 
 commemorations of Washington, Lincoln and Grant. Sel- 
 dom does posterity neglect the hero or pioneer, the dis- 
 coverer or benefactor. In poetry or song, in marble or 
 bronze, it hands down to coming generations the memory 
 of great achievements and beneficient services. 
 
 Almost every city of importance has its monument com- 
 memorative of some genius whose enduring works awake 
 the grateful acknowledgement of his fellows. Genoa has 
 its statue of Columbus a son whose discoveries brought 
 fame to his birth place ; Stratford has its statue of Shakes- 
 peare, that makes it a Mecca for the literary pilgrim ; Phila- 
 delphia has its statue of Franklin, its great inventor and 
 scientist ; Essen has its statue of Krupp, whose industrial 
 genius has encircled the world. 
 
 We are no exception to this happy custom. After 
 thirty-nine years, we gather to unveil a statue to John A. 
 Roebling, one of Trenton's sons whose creative genius still 
 speaks in the industrial world and through the great enter- 
 prise he founded developed and enlarged under the 
 management of his sons still continues to add to the 
 growth and prosperity of our city.
 
 16 
 
 It has been well said that the world and its affairs are 
 administered by men of action rather than by philosophers 
 and dreamers. The marvelous achievements of this day 
 and generation are the result of efforts of the great captains 
 of industry of men whose practical minds can see a com- 
 pleted work even before it is started ; a trans-continental 
 railroad before the first spike is driven ; an Erie Canal be- 
 fore a spade is handled ; a submarine cable joining two 
 continents before the Great Eastern is built; a Brooklyn 
 bridge before the first cable is swung. 
 
 It is in these lines that the greatest progress has been 
 made, the greatest benefits conferred upon mankind. New 
 methods of traffic and communication have enabled us to 
 utilize the fields, the forests, the mines, and to furnish 
 profitable employment to millions. The life of John A. 
 Roebling contributed to these ends. He was the first to 
 conceive the idea of a long span suspension bridge, and 
 with masterly courage he executed it, practically in the face 
 of predictions of failure on the part of the leading en- 
 gineers of the day. 
 
 He surveyed and located the line to Pittsburgh, from 
 Harrisburg across the Alleghanies. He designed new forms 
 of aqueducts to carry the waters of canals over chasms and 
 shallow streams. He saw the necessity of a substitute for 
 the bulky and heavy ropes used to draw canal boats up long 
 elevations, and his fertile mind devised machinery for the 
 making of wire rope, of which he was the first manufac- 
 turer in this country, and which was the foundation of the 
 great Roebling works. 
 
 With the daring of the pioneer he blazed new pathways 
 and created new enterprises and industries, which furnished 
 employment to thousands. He broke down nature's barriers, 
 bridged impassable rivers and mighty chasms, and made
 
 17 
 
 easy communication and trade between great and growing 
 populations. 
 
 When one pictures the closer relations and the increased 
 commerce between different sections ; the riches and com- 
 forts and blessings that followed in the pathway of this 
 pioneer, it would seem that his countryman, Schiller, had 
 him in mind when he said : 
 
 " The toil of science swells the wealth of art." 
 
 America is a cosmopolitan country, and the typical 
 American has in his veins the blood of all nations. He is 
 the evolved product of hundreds and thousands who have 
 come hither from abroad, found homes upon our hospitable 
 shores, and, adapting themselves to the genius of our insti- 
 tutions, have become part of the warp and woof of our 
 nation's life. This republic owes much to the sons of the 
 fatherland who have settled upon our soil and been loyal to 
 our institutions. 
 
 No race has been more reliable, more consistent for the 
 principles of conservatism and common honesty and right, 
 more steadfast in their devotion to the principles of our 
 government, than the Germans who have made this their 
 home. 
 
 Mr. Roebling was one of these and he loved his adopted 
 country and was proud to become an American citizen. 
 In the early days of the Civil War he evinced his patriotism 
 and loyalty by proposing and subscribing to a fund to arm 
 and equip volunteers to defend the flag. He believed in his 
 republic, and he was willing to make sacrifices in service or 
 money to save it from destruction. 
 
 In a sense no monument is needed to preserve the 
 memory or fame of this patriotic citizen and epoch-making 
 manufacturer and engineer. His works are his monuments.
 
 18 
 
 In the East the memorial of his genius links together 
 the divided sections of the metropolis of our country 
 and looks down upon the commerce of the world. In 
 the North it spans Niagara's mighty cataracts and 
 makes a pathway between two nations. In the West, 
 his early home, the waters of the Ohio and other streams 
 are crossed by suspended highways fashioned by his talent 
 and skill. So long as these shall stand or the principle of 
 their construction be observed, his fame is secure. 
 
 This monument is raised not more to him than to our- 
 selves a sign to all the world that knows his works, that 
 here he lived. It is the embodiment of civic pride and 
 filial affection, and our citizens and the sons of John A. 
 Roebling have done honor to themselves in honoring the 
 benefactor and father. Fortunate that he should leave be- 
 hind those who could carry on the work and enterprises he 
 conceived. Great men do not always live to see the 
 accomplishment of their mission. 
 
 Moses never entered the promised land ; but the children 
 of Israel went on to Canaan. Reynolds fell at Gettysburg 
 before the decisive hour; but the battle continued and 
 Gettysbury was won. Lincoln died ; but the Union he 
 loved went on to greater glories. 
 
 John A. Roebling never saw or realized his conception 
 of the aerial structure that arches the East river, but a loving 
 and able son carried on and successfully completed this 
 project of his inventive mind. 
 
 The enterprise which he left with a hundred employes 
 has since marshalled a host of eight thousand. 
 
 Fitting it is that his monument should be placed in this 
 community. Here let it stand to tell the story of a great 
 intellectual and practical engineer; of a scientific manufac-
 
 19 
 
 turer who revolutionized conditions and who brought honor 
 and reputation and prosperity to his adopted city. 
 
 The work of this committee of citizens who conceived 
 this monument and whose worthy efforts to-day crowns 
 with success, has attracted attention throughout our country 
 and even across the seas ; because the subject of their 
 memorial is measured by no local limitations, but is of 
 national and international fame. The committee's work is 
 done ; they have rendered our community a great service 
 and deserve the thanks of the public, and their greatest 
 reward is the success of their efforts in the consummation 
 of this day. As they lay aside their duties, on their behalf, 
 I present this statue to the city a tribute to their patriotic 
 efforts and a lasting reminder of the achievements of an 
 honored citizen of Trenton. 
 
 Here it rests, a companion to yonder monument of 
 Washington. Both of these subjects were engineers ; one 
 journeyed with Braddock to Fort Duquesne, when the 
 Alleghany and the Monangahela flowed through a wilder- 
 ness ; the other settled near the same spot at a time when 
 it was almost the western frontier of the active civilization 
 of the Republic and helped to open it to traffic and com- 
 munication. 
 
 The one made Trenton historic on the field of battle ; 
 the other made it historic in the field of industry. One 
 triumphed here in war and laid the foundations of national 
 independence ; the other triumphed here in peace and laid 
 the foundations of a new and abiding prosperity. 
 
 These two monuments typify each its particular phase 
 of American life ; each parallels and complements the 
 other; each is a memorial of achievements wrought and 
 an inspiration to glories yet to be.
 
 20 
 
 John A. Roebling filled such an important place in 
 American progress that the lessons of his life are needed 
 by posterity. It is proper that his career should be re- 
 viewed and its incidents told on this occasion. It is a 
 great subject with which we have to deal. 
 
 We are fortunate in having as the orator of this occasion 
 one whose connections with the family of Mr. Roebling 
 are sufficiently close to enable him to be familiar with the 
 incidents of his life, and sufficiently removed to make him 
 an unprejudiced and faithful biographer. 
 
 I take pleasure in presenting as the orator of the day, 
 Mr. Henry D. Estabrook, of New York city.
 
 Address of 
 Mr. Henry D. Estabrook. 
 
 who knew him best affirm that the statue of 
 John Augustus Roebling, which you, the citizens 
 of Trenton, have here and now erected to his 
 memory, is a true and faithful likeness. But it is more. 
 Through some Promethian fire that flames once in a life- 
 time in the heart of genius, the sculptor has " in this rough 
 work shaped out a man." 
 
 In "The Winter's Tale," Leontes asks, "What fine 
 chisel could ever yet cut breath?" But does not this image 
 breathe ? Look ! It exhales a personality, and he whose 
 plastic skill evoked the miracle might well stand in my 
 place and say to you in the very words of Shakespeare : 
 
 " If you can behold it, 
 I'll make the statue move indeed, descend 
 And take you by the hand." 
 
 I am expected by those having these ceremonies in 
 charge to translate into words what the sculptor has so 
 admirably expressed in bronze, namely, the type and 
 quality, the idiosyncrasy of your famous townsman. But 
 words are all too plastic for such a task. As if his nature 
 had been subdued to what it worked in, the Iron Master 
 of Trenton was a man of iron. Iron was in his blood, and 
 sometimes entered his very soul ; a man of iron, with the 
 virtues of iron and the peccancies of iron to his account,
 
 22 
 
 and John A. Roebling as he was, as you knew him, head 
 bared to the blows of fortune or the storms of heaven, eyes 
 fixed unwaveringly on whatever object he had in hand ; 
 poised, confident, unyielding, imperious and proud, John A. 
 Roebling is there seated forever on yonder pedestal. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, the unveiling of a statue is the unveiling 
 of a mystery. It is the revelation of a life, the denoue- 
 ment of a career. A statue is an apparition an apparition 
 that lingers, a ghost transfixed, immutable thought uttered 
 in brazen metaphor. 
 
 And yet, even a bronze statue, with its solemn fixity of 
 meaning, must have been prefigured in the genial clay soft 
 and plasmic, shaped by a touch, yielding to a finger tip. 
 So the character it portrays, however obdurate, begins in 
 protoplasm ; and the matrix of circumstance, in which all of 
 us are molded do we fashion it ourselves, as the grub 
 fashions its cocoon, or is there a Sculptor a Divinity that 
 shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will ? The old 
 adage declares that man proposes and God disposes ; 
 or, as the Bible puts it, "A man's heart deviseth his way; 
 but the Lord directeth his steps." Meaning that every 
 man may realize himself as the Almighty made him, which 
 is a spiritual fulfillment ; or he may make himself, after 
 a pattern of his own invention, and live deluded a som- 
 nambulist till the great awakening. Never believe that 
 man is simply the creature of circumstance, the sport of 
 chance, the passive issue of his heredity or environment. 
 These may be hindrances or helps according as they are 
 used, but the agency, the power to conquer, is the man as 
 God made him. Every hour every day is time enough, 
 every place everywhere is opportunity enough for a man to 
 be what he ought to be, and unless he is, and regardless of 
 his accomplishment, he will miss the joy of living the joy
 
 23 
 
 which is not in mind alone, nor in heart alone, but in that 
 commingling of mind and heart, justice and mercy, that 
 sanctions and sanctifies accomplishment. 
 
 These comments are not unrelated to the life of John 
 A. Roebling, but are rather suggested by it. His biography, 
 written by the eldest son, is yet in manuscript and may 
 never be published ; but it is one of the most remarkable 
 books I ever read. It is remarkable for its genuine litera- 
 ture, which is Arcadian and original ; remarkable for its 
 naive philosophy, a trifle bilious, may be, but honest and 
 unlacquered ; remarkable for its analysis of men and events 
 and for an acidulous humor that is almost styptic ; but 
 chiefly is it remarkable for the frank revealment of the in- 
 time vitae, the qualities and inequalities of the extraor- 
 dinary man who was his father. Unconsciously to himself, 
 perhaps, the biographer has given us a study in evolution, 
 with the factors of heredity, environment, the struggle for 
 existence, and all the rest of it, plus a psychic something 
 that Darwinism might consider negligible. 
 
 John Augustus Roebling was born June, 1806, in 
 Miilhausen, Germany, and the State of Thiiringen. Miil- 
 hausen is an old walled town founded in the year 800. 
 The wall was really built to keep people out, though why 
 anybody should want to get into Miilhausen is matter of 
 wonderment after reading a description of it. You could 
 easier surmise that the wall was to prevent escape, just as 
 prisoners are immured to insure their whereabouts. Miil- 
 hausen in the words of Tennyson is 
 
 " A sleepy town, where under the same wheel 
 " The same old rut is deepened year by year." 
 
 As for Thiiringen, it is one of the poorest of the Ger- 
 man States. The land is high and stony and cold. A yield
 
 24 
 
 of fifteen bushels of wheat to the acre is exceptional, and 
 the other crops are quite as scanty. It was only by hard 
 work and frugality to the utmost of self-denial that the 
 people were able to eke out an existence. In those days 
 there were no factories in Miilhausen, the mechanics and 
 artisans doing their work in their own little houses, the whole 
 family assisting, the women working quite as hard as the 
 men. For more than a thousand years there had been 
 hard work in Miilhausen but no enterprise whatever, and 
 work without enterprise is a kind of catalepsy. Life was 
 stereotyped, society stratified. 
 
 To a man like Polycarp Roebling, father of John Roeb- 
 ling, the prescriptive life of this old German village was 
 by no means irksome. He kept a tobacco shop and man- 
 aged to smoke as much tobacco as he sold. Smoking in. 
 Germany, you know, is a solace, whereas in America it is 
 an employment. To the German smoke is a nimbus and 
 begets reverie and an introspective philosophy. 
 
 So Polycarp Roebling loved Miilhausen and lived and 
 died there, in spite of his son's efforts to lure him to 
 America. His sainted namesake had been burned at the 
 stake for cherishing certain opinions. Nothing of this kind 
 was likely to happen in Mulhausen, but no telling what 
 the wild Indians might do in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, 
 and Polycarp Roebling held opinions on a variety of sub- 
 jects for which he was willing to smoke but by no means 
 willing to burn. Moreover, he was accustomed to Mul- 
 hausen beer. It was not possible that beer like this could 
 be found in all the world, and what was there in America 
 to compensate for such a loss? It was also true that sur- 
 prising things were happening in the United States. 
 Nothing ever happened in Mulhausen, and a surprise of 
 any kind was as disturbing to the old gentleman as a poke
 
 25 
 
 in the ribs ; it was a species of impertinence. The grand- 
 son assures us that under no circumstances would his 
 grandfather open a letter on the same day it was received, 
 for no particular reason unless it were to tease the curiosity 
 of his wife, whose temperament was of quite another sort. 
 Yes, the mother differed greatly from the father in 
 character and disposition, and John A. Roebling was the 
 son of his mother. To her Miilhausen was a pent-up 
 Utica. She was a woman of tremendous activity, mental 
 and physical. Deep in her soul she nourished ambitions 
 which became tragedies through very hopelessness. The 
 fate of Tantalus was cruel but not unmitigated, for he at 
 least saw something towards which to struggle ; had she 
 been Tantalus mythology might be different. But to skin 
 a flint, to milk a he-goat into a sieve, as the saying is 
 that is what life in Miilhausen meant to the mother of 
 John Roebling. And yet, weary as she was of much doing 
 and no performance she did not whimper for sympathy. 
 She worked for the sake of work, for the blessedness of 
 drudgery, and confronted her disappointments with a stern 
 and Spartan courage. She had borne four children, three 
 sons and a daughter, but it was not until her youngest 
 child, John, had displayed mental qualities to distinguish 
 him even in the eyes of strangers that there dawned upon 
 her the full significance of motherhood its doom, its glory, 
 its sacrifice, its triumph. Thenceforth ambition had but 
 one goal, life but one object the education of her boy ; 
 through him she would achieve, through him she would 
 fulfil her destiny. Work was redoubled it had become a 
 sacrament. Economies were multiplied they had become 
 a rosary, for every pfennig saved was a prayer answered. 
 The members of her family were incited to ceaseless effort 
 while she, the mother, brooded and safeguarded the fruits
 
 26 
 
 of that effort. Her executive faculties developed with 
 their exercise and she managed everything and everybody. 
 
 Thus it was that John Roebling was enabled to graduate 
 from the Royal University of Berlin after a course at the 
 Pedagogium of Erfurt, and thus it was that when, shortly 
 thereafter, he sailed for America, he carried with him a 
 patrimony large enough to insure his establishment. 
 
 His austere mother, who had been regnant and supreme 
 in her household whom an artist would picture as a 
 caryatid holding up the House of Roebling this heroic 
 mother, I say, accompanied her beloved son to the port of 
 embarkation and bade him farewell, without a quiver of 
 the lips or the shedding of a tear. It was an eternal fare- 
 well, for almost in the act of waving her adieux she was 
 seized with a mortal malady and died died before her 
 son, who was destined to play so conspicuous a part in the 
 commercial life of America, and for whom her own life 
 had been one long travail, had set foot in the promised 
 land. Her work was done. She had met her destiny. 
 There was in this self-immolation the fervor and the pride 
 of accomplishment, to be sure, but was there the happi- 
 ness of fulfillment? Alas for the offices of love without 
 the tenderness, the loveliness of love ! Alas for the cark 
 and care of maternity without the charm and witchery of 
 motherhood ! Alas for the cradle without a lullaby ! There 
 is a deafening silence in our ears when the heartstrings vi- 
 brate without a sound ! 
 
 At Dr. Unger's Pedagogium, in Erfurt, John Roebling 
 had won the admiring friendship of the distinguished doc- 
 tor, whose numerous books on mathematics are to-day part 
 of the Roebling library. At the Royal University of Ber- 
 lin he had studied architecture and engineering with Stuler 
 and Rabe ; bridge construction with Dietleyn ; hydraulics
 
 27 
 
 with Eytelwein ; languages in regular course and philos- 
 ophy under the great Hegel, who openly avowed that John 
 Roebling was his favorite pupil. 
 
 The last statement is important, and I repeat it. John 
 Roebling was the favorite pupil of the immortal Hegel. 
 
 You realize, of course, that the function of a teacher is 
 feminine. When a school boy speaks of " alma mater " 
 he is not thinking of his rhetoric. "Alma mater " is always 
 enciente, and her children wax or wane on what she feeds 
 to them, whether it be pap or pabulum. And John A. 
 Roebling was the favorite pupil of Hegel a colossal dry- 
 nurse ! 
 
 Hegel is one of the epoch-makers of the world. In the 
 realm of pure reason he ranks with Plato, Descartes, Spino- 
 sa and Kant. It is impossible to study him diligently and 
 not be profoundly influenced by his teachings, and for a 
 youth like John Roebling to have been brought into inti- 
 mate contact with his dominating personality was at once a 
 privilege and a calamity. It was a privilege because it 
 opened the boy's eyes to the spiritual reality back of the 
 "change and decay" of material phenomena, for Hegel 
 was an idealist as truly as Berkeley or the Woman of Con- 
 cord ; it was a privilege because he was taught to think 
 independently and to rely upon the validity of his own con- 
 clusions. It was a calamity because it begat a pride and 
 arrogance of opinion and a frigid intellectuality that came 
 near putting the heart of him into cold storage. And yet 
 Truth never had a more honest advocate than Hegel ; 
 there can be no impeachment of his integrity. His one 
 purpose in life was to answer Job's question " Canst thou 
 by searching find out God ? " And he found his God in 
 the Universe itself, reduced to an Idea. His religion was a 
 religion that reveals rather than is revealed. " Religion,"
 
 28 
 
 said he, "is man in the presence of God." A sublime 
 definition if it does not lead to solipsism, which is another 
 name for Hegelianism. God, Man, Religion, the Uni- 
 verse these were his themes, and, says a recent commen- 
 tator, "We may safely say that no man ever handled such 
 lofty themes in so consistently and coldly scientific a spirit. 
 We never feel the beat of a heart in his writings only the 
 pulse of thought. A manual of the Differential Calculus 
 will appear a warm and sentimental treatise when compared 
 with the merciless pages in which Hegel anatomises the 
 soul of man or the nature of the Blessed God. Nothing 
 that he has said will, by the manner of his saying it, make 
 any one the braver for reading it or the better for remem- 
 bering it. The philosopher has almost if not altogether 
 eaten out the man." And John Roebling was the favorite 
 of this prodigy ! 
 
 Fellow citizens, the peculiarities and even the infirmities 
 of great men are significant, and it is perhaps wise to con- 
 sider rather than to ignore them. Please note how this 
 master was reflected in his pupil : 
 
 Hegel was a metaphysician, so was John Roebling 
 metaphysics was his dissipation. The time others spent in 
 amusements, the reading of polite literature or impolite 
 newspapers, John Roebling devoted to metaphysics. His 
 son and biographer has a manuscript volume of thousands 
 of pages written by his father, called "Roebling's Theory 
 of the Universe." I have not read this book Heaven 
 forfend that I should ever be asked to ! 
 
 Hegel was an idealist; so was John Roebling, who 
 scouted the atomic theory. His son, Washington, had 
 studied the chemistry of Dalton and attempted to combat 
 his father's arguments ; " but," says he, " father would damn 
 my atoms " and with loud and angry vociferation. This
 
 29 
 
 was hardly a pious way to resolve matter into spirit, but it 
 was strictly Hegelian. 
 
 Hegel was a wizard at dialectics a priori reasoners 
 usually are. His categories are so many pigeon holes for 
 the classification of thoughts. Indeed, Hegel's Logic 
 is a dictionary of thoughts instead of words. He loved to 
 " argufy " and so did John Roebling. A sermon or ethical 
 discourse that John Roebling once heard he could recall 
 almost verbatim, and would amplify into an interminable 
 harangue, with his children as a constrained but respectful 
 audience. The fact that they did not understand in the 
 least what he was talking about mattered not at all. He 
 would talk at them by the hour, while the poor victims 
 would blink in the illumination of his soliloquy like young 
 owls in the sunshine. It seemed to them that their father 
 was trying to define God as a Vacuum. But, as Carlyle 
 says, "words are linear, character is solid," and even Hegel 
 would admit that we live in a world of three dimensions. 
 
 Hegel was no lover of nature; to him art was every- 
 thing. Like Sidney Smith's egotist, he would dare to 
 speak disrespectfully of the equator. Hegel was never 
 heard to exclaim upon the beauties of a landscape neither 
 was John Roebling. 
 
 As a teacher Hegel differed utterly from the wise and 
 gentle Froebel. He contended that it was dangerous to 
 make education pleasant to children, and that they ought 
 to be "broken in." To me this seems a harsh and ugly 
 doctrine, but John Roebling took stock in it. His own 
 pathway to knowledge had been strewn with more thorns 
 than roses, but he knew what he knew, and, like the rest 
 of us, possibly thought he knew a great deal more than he 
 did. His student note books are preserved and prove that 
 his work at the university had been desperate and unre-
 
 30 
 
 minting. Small wonder that, proudly satisfied with his own 
 accomplishment, he should insist upon the same hard cur- 
 riculum for his offspring. Poverty and ambition, twin 
 spurs goading him to a poignancy of effort, had won him 
 the race, and so it followed, in his logic, that youth must 
 be stung and prodded into action. 
 
 The laws of his household were Draconian, and 
 prompt retribution followed their infraction. Even to be 
 sick was culpable, just as being a common scold was form- 
 erly a misdemeanor, and the dereliction was remedied by 
 like means, to wit, the ducking stool ; though it is fair to 
 say that when guilty himself of being sick John Roebling 
 took his own medicine. I know not if it is a peculiarity of 
 idealists, but those of you who have read Berkeley will re- 
 call his addiction to tar-water. Tar-water was the lustral 
 water par excellence, the grand catholicon for the cure of 
 everything. What tar-water was to Bishop Berkeley, cold 
 water was to John Roebling. Every book ever published 
 on hydropathy John Roebling bought and studied, and 
 applied its teachings according to his own notions not 
 with the cautious, tentative methods of a physician but in 
 the large, generous, voluminous manner of an engineer. 
 After all, what was hydropathy but a branch of hydraulics? 
 
 Now, parental discipline is all right, coercion is all right, 
 even castigation is all right if administered con amore, so 
 to speak. But John Roebling sometimes punished in 
 anger, which is not punishment but truculence. Is there 
 a mother's son of us who has not often recalled with a 
 grimace, half whimsical and wholly forgiving, the pendant 
 whip, kept for terror rather than for use, and more re- 
 spected by the " harmless necessary cat " than by his grace- 
 less boyhood ? Has he not in after years rallied his blessed 
 mother on the set speech which always prefaced her
 
 31 
 
 occasional application of that whip, to the effect that it 
 hurt her more than it did him ; which statement, however 
 doubted then, he knows now to have been the fact? I 
 fancy there are few such hallowed memories clustering 
 about the twig of birch that decorated the home, and eke 
 the prancing legs, of the Roebling youngsters. That 
 birchen rod meant business ! It may be parental neglect 
 or maudlin selfishness to spare the rod and spoil the child, 
 but on the whole I had rather spare the child and spoil the 
 rod ; I had rather span the gulf between life and death with 
 the tender chords of memory of those for whose being I am 
 responsible, than to bridge with steel cables the gorge of Ni- 
 agara, the East River or the Atlantic Ocean. And if John 
 Roebling could speak he would say Amen ! to this ; for 
 with advancing years his rigorous notions underwent many 
 displacements, Hegel himself being displaced by Emerson. 
 
 But even so, I am sorry this faulty thread should be 
 traced in the seamless shroud I would fain weave for so 
 great a man. It is a defect exaggerated, perhaps, by that 
 very greatness, like a pinch too much of carbon in a mass 
 of metal. I emphasize it for two reasons ; because it 
 illustrates a cardinal difference between the Old Testament 
 and the New between the old ideas and the new 
 between Hegel and Froebel, and to thank God that Frce- 
 bel triumphed ! 
 
 John Roebling set sail for America in the year 1831, 
 and landed on our shores a young man of twenty-five, seem- 
 ingly equipped for any battle that awaited him. He was a 
 most accomplished gentleman. If a wiseacre had predicted 
 his failure it would have been on the very ground that he 
 was too accomplished, that his learning and talents were too 
 various ever to focus in a particular vocation especially 
 the vocation of a farmer, which he had deliberately chosen.
 
 32 
 
 He had no knowledge of the science of farming ; indeed, 
 in his day farming scarcely ranked as a science,' nor had he 
 any practical experience in the work itself. Nevertheless, 
 he had chosen to become a farmer. He had graduated 
 from the greatest university in the world as an architect and 
 engineer; he was a scholar of wide reading; he was a 
 philosopher of the transcendental sort, whom an American 
 " hustler " would shy at as a dreamer ; he was a musician of 
 rare skill and temperament; he was the master of three 
 languages, German, French and English but what had all 
 this to do with farming? 
 
 And yet he had chosen well, at least for the time being. 
 In the first place his choice had led to a thorough study of 
 American history and geography. His knowledge of the 
 topography, climatic and political conditions, the advantages 
 and disadvantages of the various States in our Union was 
 as accurate as if he had personally visited every one of 
 them. The reasons set forth in his diary for locating as he 
 did are most convincing. In the next place, he forthwith 
 invested all his money in desirable lands at cheap prices, 
 thus preventing its dissipation in some visionary enterprise. 
 And so owning good farm lands well located he had, from 
 the very start, insured his living and his independence. 
 
 The lands selected by him were in the western part of 
 Pennsylvania, Butler county, about twenty-five miles from 
 the new town of Pittsburg. Here he and a few of his com- 
 patriots purchased some 7,000 acres at an average price of 
 $1.37 an acre, and founded the village of Germania, after- 
 wards called Saxonburg. It was a wild and isolated country 
 with a future as blank as his own, where, as Cowper would 
 say: 
 
 " History, not wanted yet, 
 
 Leaned on her elbow watching Time, whose course, 
 Eventful, should supply her with a theme."
 
 Copper Wreath, sent by the city of 
 Miilhausen, Germany, as the tribute of its 
 citizens to the memory of John A. Roeb- 
 ling.
 
 33 
 
 I may as well admit that John Roebling never became a 
 first class farmer. He made a living, to be sure, but it was 
 a meagre living, and if by good luck he got a little money 
 ahead he was sure to give it to some German emigrant in 
 worse plight than himself. He even tried to supplement 
 farming with other employments, such, for instance, as the 
 breeding of canary birds. Fancy the engineer of Brooklyn 
 bridge raising canary birds for the profit in it ! However, 
 that peerless creation was not suggested by the wire cage of 
 a canary, and he soon abandoned the enterprise as unpro- 
 ductive unproductive of money, I mean, for the birds 
 themselves were scandalously productive, though the per- 
 centage of singers was wholly disproportionate to the total 
 output. His birds turned out to be mostly females that 
 could not sing, or males that steadfastly refused to sing, at 
 least under the tutelage of John Roebling. So he transferred 
 the business to his father-in-law, a dear, delightful old 
 German, whose little farm at Saxonburg was a cultivated 
 wilderness of flowers and fruits and vegetables, and whose 
 dogs and cats and birds were the most licensed members of 
 his household. He made bird breeding pay, though truth 
 to say he cared little whether it paid or not so long as the 
 birds sang to him, which they did from morning till night 
 in a perfect gurge of melody ! 
 
 One day it occurred to Farmer Roebling that he might 
 patch out his income if, between crops and during the win- 
 ter months, he could obtain employment as an assistant en- 
 gineer in making surveys, building canals and dams for 
 slack-water navigation, and such like work that was going 
 on in his vicinity. His services were readily accepted, his 
 real merits were soon recognized, and it was not long before
 
 34 
 
 his knowledge and skill were in actual demand. Hence- 
 forth the farm was practically abandoned, so far as John 
 Roebling was concerned. 
 
 The very oldest of you may recall that before the de- 
 velopment of railroads, transportation by canal was con- 
 sidered the culmination of all that was luxurious and rapid in 
 locomotion. But a canal could not cross the mountains 
 even Yankee ingenuity could not compel water to run up 
 hill. The canal boat, however, was under no such lim- 
 itation. It was made to cross mountains without disturbing 
 passengers or freight, and by a very simple expedient. 
 The boat, you understand, was built in sections and at the 
 base of a mountain would be abrupted, loaded on to a port- 
 age railroad, section by section, and so hauled up an inclined 
 plane with rope and windlass. By like process it was 
 lowered to a canal on the opposite side of the mountain, its 
 parts once more articulated, like a jointed snake, there 
 hitched to an expectant mule (with a "spanker " appropriate 
 to the craft) and so went bounding over the billows without 
 regard to constables or speed limit. 
 
 Now the ropes used to drag these boats over the moun- 
 tains were clumsy affairs, several inches in diameter, made 
 of Kentucky hemp. They were costly and short-lived and 
 a considerable item of expense. John Roebling opined 
 that if a rope could be made of wire flexible enough to be 
 wound on a windlass, it ought to cost little more than a 
 hempen cable and would possess greater tensile strength 
 with one-fourth the diameter. Moreover, it would outlast 
 a dozen ropes woven from vegetable fiber. No one in 
 America had ever made a wire rope nor even seen one. 
 Roebling himself recalled an item in a periodical, sent him 
 from Miilhausen, to the effect that some German inventor 
 had produced a wire rope, and he concluded that what an
 
 35 
 
 indigenous German could do in the fatherland a trans- 
 planted German ought to do in America. At all events 
 the idea was worth a trial. 
 
 So he built a rope walk on his farm at Saxonburg, pur- 
 chased a quantity of wire deemed suitable for his purpose, 
 instructed his friends and neighbors in the art of rope 
 twisting, and actually fabricated a wire rope that surprised 
 his most buoyant expectations. It was a remarkable 
 achievement and almost made him famous. But he did 
 not stop here ; the wire rope led to the wire cable, still to 
 be used in connection with canals. It seems that a canal, 
 which is really an artifical river, must sometimes cross a 
 natural river. That is to say, one river, instead of emptying 
 into another, must somehow be made to flow above it. 
 Here, of course, the canal becomes a wooden aqueduct, 
 but a gigantic aqueduct, capable of floating a flat boat 
 loaded to the gun'ales. In those days the building of such 
 an aqueduct was a big undertaking and hazardous withal, 
 for frequently the ice in the river would gorge and crush 
 out the piers and abutments, permitting the canal itself to 
 join the procession and float off to sea. John Roebling's 
 inventive mind evolved an idea, having its origin in a 
 memory. 
 
 While yet a student at the university, one of his vacation 
 tramps through northern Bavaria had brought him to the 
 town of Bamberg, where he saw for the first time a bridge 
 suspended by chains spanning a small stream called the 
 Regnitz. He had studied this structure, sketched it, and 
 made it the subject of a thesis. Now he recalled his 
 youthful essay and bethought him that if a cross-river aque- 
 duct were suspended from wire cables, so much stronger 
 than chains, it would eliminate piers and posts and other 
 obstructions and leave the river to flow at its own sweet
 
 36 
 
 will. He laid his plans and calculations before the en- 
 gineers of a canal company about to cross the Alleghany 
 river at Pittsburg, frankly admitting that what he proposed 
 to do was without precedent, and in Germany would 
 doubtless be frowned upon. But he insisted that his figures 
 were correct and spoke for themselves, and that the advan- 
 tages to be gained justified some risk. In short, that his 
 scheme ought to appeal to the American spirit of shrewd 
 adventure and daring enterprise. 
 
 He was ordered to do the work, and set about it 
 knowing that the outcome would either place him in the 
 forefront of American engineers or ruin him forever. The 
 undertaking was a success and led to many com- 
 missions of like kind, several of these suspension aqueducts 
 being still in use, unimpaired, and seemingly good for all 
 eternity. 
 
 Now a layman can see that a suspension aqueduct is 
 nothing less than a suspension bridge, carrying an enormous 
 load. John Roebling recognized the fact and pondered it ; 
 the whole world knows the results of that cerebration ! 
 
 Before he had completed his first suspension bridge over 
 the Monongahela, Mr. Roebling realized that he must have 
 shops and machinery and possibly mills for drawing his own 
 wire, and he further realized that Saxonburg was not a suit- 
 able location for such a plant. On the advice of his friend, 
 Peter Cooper, whose iron foundries were at Trenton, he 
 visited this Quaker city, studied its advantages, purchased 
 a quantity of ground, and in 1849 removed his family from 
 Saxonburg here, the journey requiring seven full days 
 accomplished now in almost as many hours. Mr. Roeb- 
 ling was the architect of every building of his new plant, 
 and the inventor and designer of nearly every piece of 
 machinery that went into those buildings; for it was not
 
 37 
 
 until years afterward that he could be persuaded to employ 
 an assistant engineer or draughtsman. 
 
 How and where John Roebling found time to do all 
 that he did to attend scientific conventions and write 
 voluminously for scientific journals ; practice the flute and 
 piano ; study metaphysics and pour forth his own lucub- 
 rations in thousands of pages of manuscript ; invent tools 
 and machinery and make his own drawings for the patent 
 office ; design bridges, canals and portage railroads and 
 himself superintend their construction how he achieved 
 all this, I say, bewilders imagination. And yet, each night 
 before retiring his daily journal and note-books must be 
 written up to the minutest detail if it took till morning ! 
 It is related that once during the civil war General Fre- 
 mont sent for him and kept him waiting in the ante-room. 
 Whereupon Mr. Roebling took a card and scribbled some- 
 thing to this effect : " Sir, you are keeping me waiting. 
 John Roebling has not the leisure to wait upon any man." 
 His rule was to postpone a conference if the gentleman 
 with whom he had an appointment happened to be five 
 minutes late in keeping it. It was, of course, this egre- 
 gious value given to the instant that enabled John Roeb- 
 ling to do the work of ten men ; but to my thinking he 
 overdid it. A man may become a miser of minutes as 
 well as of pennies, and if we are immortal why, what's 
 the hurry? Time drives us all, I suppose, towards our 
 chrysalis, the grave ; some on the gallop as though running 
 to a fire, some on a jog-trot as though out for an airing. 
 Well, let each one of us employ his time as may best con- 
 duce not to his pleasure but to his happiness, a word of 
 highest meaning; remembering that John Roebling had no 
 time to be really happy he worked too hard. 
 
 His planning of the Kentucky bridge, which was never
 
 38 
 
 built; the planning of a bridge at Wheeling, the actual 
 erection of a bridge at Cincinnati and even the wonderful 
 bridge over Niagara Falls, were only preliminary training for 
 the monumental work that was to cost him his life while 
 crowning it with glory. 
 
 The Brooklyn Bridge, commonly so called, though still 
 often referred to as "The Roebling Bridge," hyphenates 
 Long Island and the island of Manhattan, and its con- 
 struction made possible the Greater City of New York. 
 When Mr. Roebling presented his plans for this amazing 
 structure the engineers of the world scoffed at them as au- 
 dacious and absurd. If, said they, he should succeed in 
 spinning his iron filaments over so vast a stretch, what use- 
 ful purpose would be accomplished ? Pouf ! Roebl ing's 
 tangle of wires was a web to catch flies he was courting 
 the fate of Arachne in the fable. It was, in sooth, a work 
 of unexampled difficulty looming, portentious, Titanic. 
 He fought his detractors inch by inch for the right to try, 
 defending his ideas with such vehemence and courage that 
 finally this right was given him. The great work, begun 
 by himself after his own designs, was completed by his 
 son. It is called to-day, in the candid admiration of man- 
 kind, the Eighth Wonder of the World. 
 
 Originally planned for a calculated load with a margin of 
 safety, the exigencies of traffic have long since burdenel 
 this noble structure many times beyond its promise; and 
 yet, within the last few weeks the board of experts ap- 
 pointed to examine its condition report that it is safe and 
 unhurt and, if possible, has grown stronger with use. 
 Luckily for the people of New York, John Roebl ing's 
 promise was always less than his performance. 
 
 But Brooklyn Bridge is more than a crowded high- 
 way. It is a thing of art, beautiful in itself. From the bed-
 
 39 
 
 rock of a mighty river, one hundred feet below its surface, 
 bastions of masonry leap towards the clouds and kindle in 
 the distance like shafts of light. The tenuous festoon that 
 seems to cling to them floats in the air an incredible gos- 
 samer woven in a dream. Yes, Brooklyn Bridge is beauti- 
 ful ! All the latent poetry of the mathematician and in 
 its highest reaches mathematics becomes divinest poetry ; 
 all the estheticism of the architect ; all the musician's sen- 
 sitiveness to harmony ; all the mysticism of an idealist 
 philosphy ; whatever of faith, feeling, reverence John 
 Roebling cherished in his heart, was here voiced like a 
 ringing cry. As if conscious of his pending doom, his 
 genius stands embodied in this final form an aspiration 
 visible a soul's bid for immortality !
 
 MAHLON R. MARGERUM 
 
 1HN C. SCHWK17.KR. 
 
 ONATHAN H. BLACKVVKI.L.
 
 The Roebling 
 Memorial Committee
 
 Roebling Memorial Committee. 
 
 The erection in the city of Trenton of a monument to 
 the memory of John A. Roebling has frequently been 
 considered, but until the organization of the Roebling 
 Memorial Committee, the proposition never advanced be- 
 yond the realm of discussion. 
 
 The credit for arousing the interest of the people of 
 Trenton, which resulted in the erection of the monument, 
 should be given to the members of the committee, brief 
 biographical sketches of whom follow : 
 
 HARRY S. MADDOCK. 
 
 Harry S. Maddock, President of the Committee, was 
 born in Brooklyn, N. Y., July 15, 1861. He came to 
 Trenton in 1875 where he has since resided. 
 
 Mr. Maddock is connected with the firm of Thomas 
 Maddock's Sons Company, one of the largest and most 
 important industries of Trenton, and the oldest manufac- 
 turers of sanitary earthenware in America. 
 
 He is a member of the Board of Police Commissioners 
 of the City of Trenton, to which he was first appointed by 
 Mayor Sickel in 1898. He has been re-appointed by suc- 
 cessive Mayors and is now serving his third term. 
 
 Mr. Maddock is a high degree Mason, a Knight Temp- 
 lar, and a member of the order of Elks. 
 
 LOUIS FISCHER. 
 
 Louis Fischer, Secretary of the Committee, was born 
 in Trenton in 1863. He attended the schools of Tren-
 
 44 
 
 ton, and in 1882 was appointed assistant to City Clerk 
 Alexander C. Yard. 
 
 He worked subsequently in New York as a book-keeper, 
 returning to Trenton in the eighties, when he entered the 
 shoe business in which he has been engaged ever since. 
 
 Mr. Fischer was elected a member of the Common 
 Council in 1902 and re-elected in 1904. He is a member 
 of the Order of Elks, the Mercer County Wheelmen, and 
 a number of other organizations. 
 
 PHILIP FREUDENMACHER. 
 
 Philip Freudenmacher, Treasurer of the Committee, 
 was born in Trenton, November 13th, 1856, and has 
 always lived in this city. 
 
 He was educated in the Trenton schools, and at the 
 age of eighteen engaged in the cigar business. He is presi- 
 dent of the Peerless Tobacco Company and consulting 
 manager of the Peoples Brewing Company. 
 
 Mr. Freudenmacher was a member of the old volunteer 
 fire department of which he was made chief in 1888. 
 He was the first chief of the paid department, and served 
 for six years as a member of the Board of Fire Com- 
 missioners. 
 
 Mr. Freudenmacher is a member of the Common 
 Council from the third ward. He belongs to a number of 
 local lodges and societies, and is actively interested in 
 matters pertaining to the welfare of his native city. 
 
 JONATHAN H. BLACKWELL. 
 
 Jonathan H. Blackwell was born in Hopewell, N. J., 
 on December 20th, 1841. He attended the public schools 
 of his native place and supplemented this with a course
 
 45 
 
 of instruction in the New Jersey Conference Seminary at 
 Pennington and the Claverack Collegiate Institute on the 
 Hudson. 
 
 At the age of eighteen he began a mercantile career in 
 his father's store at Hopewell, where he remained three years. 
 He then came to Trenton where he was employed for a 
 year when he moved to New York. In 1864 he returned 
 to Trenton and formed a partnership with the late Wm. 
 Dolton in the grocery business. 
 
 Mr. Blackwell is now the senior member of the firm of 
 J. H. Blackwell & Sons, wholesale grocers, and is also 
 interested in many important business enterprises. 
 
 In 1873 Mr. Blackwell was elected a member of the 
 Common Council of Trenton. The following year he 
 was elected to represent Mercer County in the New Jer- 
 sey State Senate. In 1878 he was appointed by Governor 
 McClellan a commissioner to the Paris Exposition. 
 
 He is a member of the Board of Managers of the Sons 
 of the Revolution of New Jersey, a director of Mercer 
 Hospital, and is actively interested in civic affairs. 
 
 GENERAL C. EDWARD MURRAY. 
 
 General C. Edward Murray was born in Lambert- 
 ville, July 17th, 1863. In 1865 his parents moved to 
 Trenton where he has since resided. He was educated 
 in the schools of Trenton and in 1883 became associated 
 with his father in a rubber manufacturing business of 
 which he became later the sole proprietor. In addition to 
 this business, he is interested in a number of important 
 industries of Trenton. 
 
 General Murray's interest in public matters began in his 
 youth and has always been maintained. In 1894 he was
 
 46 
 
 elected City Clerk, which office he kept until he declined 
 re-election in 1904. 
 
 He enlisted in Company A, Seventh Regiment, N. G. 
 N. J., in 1885, and rose from the ranks to the position of 
 Captain and Paymaster. March 8th, 1905, Governor 
 Edward C. Stokes, appointed him Quartermaster-General. 
 He was commissioned Brigadier General, April 5th, 1905. 
 
 MAHLON R. MARGERUM. 
 
 Mahlon R. Margerum was born in Trenton, October 
 28th, 1856. He was educated in the Trenton schools 
 and began his business career with the firm of Hiram 
 Rice & Co., grocers. When twenty-one years of age 
 he engaged in business for himself as a pork-packer and 
 has since widely extended his business interests. 
 
 Mr. Margerum is President of the Peoples Brewing 
 Company, Treasurer and General Manager of the Windsor 
 Hotel Co., and Treasurer of the Mercer Bottling Co. He 
 has long been interested in military affairs and was ap- 
 pointed by former Governor Stokes a member of his per- 
 sonal staff. Mr. Margerum is Secretary of the Inter-State 
 Fair Association, and has through his energy and intelligent 
 management of details, contributed largely to the success 
 of this institution. 
 
 SAMUEL WALKER. 
 
 Samuel Walker was born in Trenton, October 1, 1860. 
 He graduated from the Trenton High School in 1879 and 
 afterwards read law in the office of Ex-Congressman James 
 Buchanan. Hew as admitted as a member of the New 
 Jersey Bar in 1883 and has since been engaged in the 
 practise of law.
 
 47 
 
 Mr. Walker is one of the directors of the Trenton Trust 
 and Safe Deposit Company, Real Estate Title Company, 
 Keystone Pottery Company, and Potteries Selling Company. 
 
 He was a member of the Board of Education in 1882- 
 1884; Treasurer of the City of Trenton in 1892-1894; 
 County Treasurer in 1894-1897 and has also served as a 
 member of the Board of Police Commissioners, to which 
 position he was appointed by Mayor Frank O. Briggs in 
 1899. 
 
 JOHN C. SCHWEIZER. 
 
 John C. Schweizer was born in Zigishausen, Wurttem- 
 berg, Germany, March 3d, 1837. After attending school 
 in his native country, he worked as an apprentice to 
 a machinist until he was sixteen years of age, when he 
 came to America. 
 
 In 1862 he returned to Germany, where he resided for 
 a year and a half, when he again came to America and 
 entered the employ of the Camden and Amboy Railroad 
 Company, working in the company's shops at Bordentown, 
 New Jersey. 
 
 In 1866 Mr. Schweizer moved to Trenton and settled in 
 the borough of Chambersburg, where he engaged in the 
 dry goods and grocery business. He was active in this 
 business for a period of thirty-five years, building up a large 
 and successful mercantile establishment. About five years 
 ago he retired from business life. 
 
 Mr. Schweizer was formerly a member of the Common 
 Council of Chambersburg and also served as Com- 
 missioner of the Sinking Fund. He was a member of the 
 Board of Fire Commissioners for two terms, and the Board 
 of City Assessors for one term.
 
 48 
 
 CHRISTIAN GUENTHER. 
 
 Christian Guenther was born in Mulhausen, Thurin- 
 gen, Germany, August 22nd, 1834. He learned the 
 machinists' trade in his youth, and in 1852 left Mul- 
 hausen for America. Mr. Guenther worked at his trade 
 in a number of American cities and at the outbreak of the 
 civil war was living in the city of New York. 
 
 He enlisted in 1861 in the 46th New York Volunteers, 
 and was wounded at the second battle of Bull Run. In 
 1863 he was honorably discharged from the Army and 
 moved to Trenton, where he accepted a position in the 
 employ of John A. Roebling. 
 
 He was a member of the Council of the Borough of 
 Chambersburg, before its annexation to Trenton. Mr. 
 Guenther is still employed at the Roebling works, where 
 he has worked continuously for forty-five years. 
 
 His long connection with the company, his personal ac- 
 quaintance with John A. Roebling, and the fact that he and 
 Mr. Roebling were born in the same town in Germany, 
 gave to Mr. Guenther an added interest in the work of the 
 Monument Committee, in which he took an active part.
 
 Press Comments
 
 Press Comments. 
 
 TRUE AMERICAN, Trenton, N. J. 
 
 " The Roebling plant and Trenton have grown together. When 
 John A. Roebling came to New Jersey's capital 60 years ago he 
 found a town of less than 10,000 population. The mill that he 
 started for the manufacture of wire rope was a little, one-story 
 affair ; the number of his employes was so small that he could keep 
 their accounts in his head. How greatly his work has prospered 
 under his guidance and that of his successors, and how it has con- 
 tributed to the growth of Trenton was demonstrated yesterday 
 when nigh unto 10,000 men, employes of the John A. Roebling' s 
 Sons Company, paraded the streets of Trenton in honor of the de- 
 dication of a statue to the founder of the house. 
 
 Trenton is to-day a city of 100,000 population and the Roeblings 
 by furnishing employment to such a vast army have directly con- 
 tributed at least 25,000 of the aggregate. When one adds another 
 army needed to supply this host with food and clothing, means of 
 transportation and communication, and other necessities and the 
 luxuries of life, it is no exaggeration to say that John A. Roebling's 
 coming to Trenton when he did and the location of his factory 
 here, account for half the population of which New Jersey's capital 
 boasts. When one adds to this the influence of John A. Roebling 
 and his successors and the fruits of their influence, the riddle of the 
 Trenton of to-day, a State capital and yet a hive of industry, famed 
 more for its commodities than for its politics, is solved. 
 
 Yesterday's demonstration was most noteworthy. Comparatively 
 few of the people of Trenton have had an adequate conception of 
 the importance of the Roebling plant to the city. They scarcely 
 ever gave it a thought, and yet that plant with its more than 8,000 
 employes is the foundation on which more than half of the values 
 of Trenton's property are laid. 
 
 Yesterday's demonstration was unusual. Never before has Tren- 
 ton seen such a parade. Never before has Cadwalader Park, in 
 which the Roebling monument was unveiled, seen such a multitude, 
 variously estimated at from 30,000 to 50,000. Trenton has had 
 military parades and industrial parades galore, but never a parade of 
 such an army of employes of a single concern, proud of their con- 
 nection therewith, each one a contributor to its fame, each one a
 
 52 
 
 sharer in the fruits of John A. Roebling's engenuity, the genius of 
 his sons and the marvellous executive ability that have made pos- 
 sible the up-building of so splendid an enterprise. 
 
 It was an uncontrovertible argument in favor of the maintenance 
 of our industrial system, suffering at the present hour from the 
 attacks of those who would overthrow it. But for the freedom ac- 
 corded individual initiative in this country and the opportunity 
 attached to such freedom, John A. Roebling would never have been 
 attracted to these shores. With governmental restraint upon his 
 engenuity, he would probably have been content to live and die 
 without giving to the world his marvellous suspension bridges. 
 There would not be in Trenton a factory supplying the homes of 
 8,000 men with greater comforts than the homes of men ever had 
 under a system of independent endeavors, or would enjoy under a 
 system where the incapacity and dishonesty of government super- 
 visors impede progress and blight man's prospects for the future. 
 
 SUNDAY ADVERTISER, Trenton, N. J. 
 
 Thirty-nine years have passed since the death of John Augustus 
 Roebling, and it is a magnificent tribute to the endurance of his 
 achievements and the strength of his hold upon the grateful recol- 
 lections of his fellow-citizens that at this late day they join with 
 hearty enthusiasm in the dedication of an imposing monument to 
 his memory. Next Tuesday will witness the dedicatory ceremonies 
 at Cadwalader Park where upon a pleasant knoll a bronze statue of 
 the great engineer has been erected. There is no need to pronounce 
 a panegyric upon the distinguished dead in this case. His works 
 live after him to proclaim his creative genius and to tell of the debt 
 which the world owes to his beneficient services. The mighty 
 structures which span once impassable rivers and threatening 
 chasms, affording safe and easy inter-communication for immense 
 populations, are his best monument, his most eloquent eulogium. 
 His name will go down in American history as that of the great 
 bridge-builder as the engineer whose unequalled knowledge of the 
 nature, capabilities and requirements in the use of wire enabled him 
 to revolutionize that important form of construction. 
 
 This information is familiar to the world at large. For ourselves 
 the thought which we would lay as a garland upon the statue in
 
 53 
 
 Cadwalader Park, concerns John A. Roebling's relations with his 
 fellow-townsmen here in Trenton throughout his wonderfully suc- 
 cessful career. And we cannot present this sentiment in more 
 appropriate words than those employed by the late Rev. Dr. John 
 Hall, long pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, this city, who 
 preached the funeral sermon on that eventful Sunday (July 25, 1869), 
 when the remains of John A. Roebling were laid at rest in Mother 
 Earth. 
 
 " Here in his home," said Dr. Hall, after previously alluding to 
 his works of genius and skill, " in this host of sad and many weep- 
 ing faces, we find the memorials of another and a higher character ; 
 one that was built up silently with no demonstration of what was 
 going on except the good that was done and the example that was 
 set. Here are the witnesses of his integrity, liberality and benevo- 
 lence. Here are those who were the almoners of his bounty to 
 orphans' and widows' institutions, by annual appropriations of an 
 amount that of itself secured their efficiency. 
 
 " These bands of workmen coming not alone but with their 
 wives and children testify that they knew him not only in the 
 workshops or by the pay roll but as the friend of their families. 
 
 " Here is the lesson which men of capital and employers of labor 
 are summoned by Providence this day to learn, to admire and to 
 practice. This scene is a touching rebuke, in corroboration of 
 what all true social science teaches to those who look upon the 
 laboring classes as only so much machinery from which they may 
 obtain as much work with as little cost as possible. This man was 
 the friend as well as the employer of his people, and they knew they 
 could at any time appeal to him as such." 
 
 It has been the good fortune of John A. Roebling that his indus- 
 try and his genius have been transmitted to the succeeding genera- 
 tions of his family, that the manufacturing plant which even in his 
 own day was very extensive, has grown to mammoth proportions 
 and international reputation under the management of his children 
 and grandchildren, and that it still maintains with its employes the 
 policy of helpfulness and wise consideration which marked its 
 pioneer years. 
 
 Trenton then does well to honor John A. Roebling and build up 
 in a great resort of the people a lasting monument to the virtues 
 that his useful life taught, while at the same time preserving in
 
 54 
 
 enduring bronze the traits of a benign countenance in which are in- 
 delibly engraved high intelligence, deliberate judgment, benevolence 
 and upright living. 
 
 TRENTON TIMES, Trenton, N. J. 
 
 John A. Roebling, to whose memory a monument is being dedi- 
 cated in Cadwalader Park this afternoon, was the president of the 
 first Board of Trade organized in Trenton, and occupied that 
 position at the time of his death, on July 22, 1869. The late 
 Charles Hewitt, himself an engineer of repute, at a meeting of the 
 board following the announcement of Mr. Roebling's death, said : 
 "His name is one known wherever a knowledge of science has 
 gone, as perhaps the most successful engineer of the age. He was 
 gifted with the ability to devise and execute with equal success, and 
 hence deserved and received the just praise of the scientific world." 
 
 Thus it will be seen that there was appreciation of his ability by 
 his contemporaries, and that the memorial, belated in erection per- 
 haps, is richly deserved. "By the poor Mr. Roebling was justly 
 beloved," said Mr. Hewitt, who referred to "the tears of widows 
 and orphans, whose wants have been supplied by his benefactions," 
 while the resolutions of the organization over which he presided 
 spoke of him as "always among the first to promote every useful 
 enterprise and always ready to aid liberally in all the public and pri- 
 vate charities, without ostentation or display." A local account of 
 the funeral referred to it as " the greatest popular demonstration of 
 respect ever witnessed in this city." 
 
 A new generation has come up since John A. Roebling died thirty- 
 nine years ago ; Trenton has grown from a city of less than 25,000 
 to one of 100,000 inhabitants ; the modest little wire mill established 
 on its suburbs in 1850, has spread until its mills and yards cover 
 thirty-five acres of ground, with a village annex of 250 acres and 
 about eighteen acres covered with buildings. Seventy buildings, 
 with a productive capacity requiring the services of 8,000 employes, 
 have taken the place of the little one-story structure familiar to the 
 eyes of older Trentonians. 
 
 Surely Trenton should pay tribute to the memory of the immi 
 grant engineer and his achievements. Mr. Roebling came to 
 America in 1831 with a brother, to engage in farming. Fortunately 
 for the world, he abandoned agriculture pursuits after an experience
 
 55 
 
 of four years, and resumed the practice of his profession as a civil 
 engineer. In 1842 he induced the Pennsylvania Canal Board to sub- 
 stitute wire rope for hemp on the inclined planes of the Alleghany 
 Portage Road connecting the eastern and western divisions of the 
 Pennsylvania Canal. 
 
 The success of the experiment led up to the construction of the 
 suspension aqueduct over the Alleghany River at Pittsburg ; the 
 suspension bridge over the Monongahela River ; four suspension 
 aqueducts on the Delaware and Hudson Canal ; the great suspension 
 bridge over the Niagara River, that attracted the attention of the 
 world ; a bridge over the Kentucky River, and another over the 
 Ohio between Cincinnati and Covington, finished in 1867 ; and 
 finally to the Brooklyn Bridge. All these still stand as monuments 
 of the ability and foresight of " the most successful engineer of the 
 age." 
 
 Other hands took up the work laid down by the pioneer suspen- 
 sion bridge builder thirty-nine years ago. They have no doubt 
 developed it far beyond the dreams of the father, and the younger 
 generation may in time still further extend the great business that in 
 itself furnishes employment to the population of a city of consider- 
 able size. Trenton has reason to honor the memory of the man 
 who did so much for the city. 
 
 The intrinsic value of the bronze statue is not great, but it is 
 the first memorial of the kind erected by the municipality. In that 
 fact and the words of the inscription lie its worth: "Founder of 
 Trenton's greatest industry ; an energetic worker, inventor and man 
 of affairs ; devoted to his adopted country, in whose progress he 
 had unswerving faith ; a patron of arts and sciences, and benefactor 
 to mankind." 
 
 STATE GAZETTE, Trenton, N. J. 
 
 To-day a monument, built by citizens to perpetuate the memory 
 of John A. Roebling, will be unveiled in Cadwalader Park. The 
 event will be a memorable one, because of the fact that practically 
 all of the citizens of Trenton will participate in it. The municipal 
 offices will be closed at noon, and many of the factories will suspend 
 operations long enough to give their employes an opportunity to 
 visit the park and witness the ceremonies. 
 
 The monument was built by popular subscription, and will stand
 
 56 
 
 as a testimonial of the respect that the citizens of Trenton have for 
 the man who laid the foundation of one of the largest manufacturing 
 plants of its kind in the world, and which has contributed in no 
 small degree to the upbuilding of this city and bringing it to the 
 front rank of manufacturing towns in the United States. 
 
 It is right and proper that the men, women and children of a 
 municipality should honor those who have contributed to their pros- 
 perity and happiness as John A. Roebling did. From a small and 
 inconsequential establishment, the Roebling plant has grown to pro- 
 portions that make it of great financial value to the city of Trenton. 
 It employs thousands of men and women, and is the dependency of 
 hundreds of homes. 
 
 It required courage and determination to lay the corner stone of 
 the great enterprise that now exists in the name of the John A. 
 Roebling's Sons Company, and John A. Roebling possessed them 
 both in a large degree. He was a pioneer in the field of industry 
 in New Jersey, and his industry and thrift developed not only the 
 enterprise in which he engaged but the city in which he lived, 
 as well. 
 
 EVENING NEWS, Newark, N. J. 
 
 The esteem in which the memory of John A. Roebling is held in 
 Trenton was indicated today, when the people of that city dedicated 
 with impressive ceremonies a statue of the great engineer, whose 
 name has been a household word throughout the country ever since 
 his mind conceived and his energy constructed the Brooklyn Bridge. 
 Yet it was not alone to the genius, the expert in wire, the mighty 
 bridge builder, that this tribute was paid. John A. Roebling was 
 more to the people of Trenton than an engineer and a manufacturer. 
 He was a citizen of whose achievements his fellow-townsmen were 
 proud because of his personal worth, his charitable nature, his wis- 
 dom as a counselor, his friendship for his neighbors, and his con- 
 stant endeavor to improve the condition of the men employed by 
 him. The statue today dedicated in Cadwalader Park is, therefore, 
 the local tribute to the man. 
 
 It is nearly thirty-nine years since John A. Roebling died in the 
 heighth of his fame. He was buried on July 25, 1869, and many 
 were the words of praise for his wonderful accomplishments spoken 
 about his bier. But the good that he had done lived after him.
 
 57 
 
 The great enterprises that he started but left uncompleted were con- 
 tinued and carried out with success by his family. The industry 
 that he founded in Trenton was expanded, and the principles he had 
 so firmly laid down were adhered to strictly. He, though dead, 
 has been speaking all these years, and the people of Trenton have 
 recognized the fact. They have waited long before honoring Mr. 
 Roebling's memory with a statue, but the very length of that time 
 indicates the permanence of the esteem in which he has been held in 
 the city where he was best known. 
 
 But the dedication of the monument to-day is more than a local 
 event in Trenton. From Mr. Roebling's native town in Germany 
 comes evidence in the form of a cablegram of the interest there in 
 the honor done a son of Muelhausen. New Jersey is also proud of 
 being the State in which Mr. Roebling developed his talents and 
 from which he gave the world the benefit of his genius. The statue 
 in Cadwalader Park is a fitting one, but it is small in comparison 
 with the great monuments that will endure for generations in all 
 parts of the world with which his name is associated. 
 
 THE SUNDAY CALL, Newark, N. J. 
 
 It was not necessary for Trenton to erect a monument to John A. 
 Roebling. The man whose life work included the first suspension 
 bridge at Niagara Falls and the first East river bridge is not likely 
 to be forgotten. Even in Trenton there is a greater monument to 
 him than any artist could produce, in the big Roebling works. 
 However, Trenton did honor to itself in erecting the memorial, al- 
 though it could not increase the engineer's fame. Few who are now 
 living remember the completion of the suspension bridge over 
 the Niagara gorge fifty years ago. It was one of the wonders of 
 the world for a time, and the discussion as to whether it would be 
 safe seems amusing now, but passengers on trains crossing it had 
 a very lively fear for years after it was used. 
 
 COURIER, Plainfield, N. J. 
 
 It is not often that a city feels proud enough of one of her citizens 
 to suspend business at the unveiling of a monument to him as was 
 done in Trenton Tuesday in honor of the late John A. Roebling. 
 6*
 
 58 
 
 But it is not so often that a city has one so widely interested in the 
 great things of life as a great builder, inventor, man of affairs, patron 
 of arts and sciences, who came from a foreign land and did so much 
 that will live long after him as a benefit to so many people. The 
 demonstration to his greatness came late, thirty-nine years after his 
 death, but it shows that the great still live and their works speak 
 long after they themselves are silenced by the Great Destroyer. 
 The tribute to this man, which all Trenton turned out to pay him, 
 is something of an example to the youths who are to be the future 
 citizens of the country, by way of showing what hard work will do 
 for a young man who came up from the lesser walks of Jife. A til- 
 ler of the soil, a stranger in a strange land, far from his home across 
 the seas, but he became a great American. It ought to be an 
 inspiration to the American boy to be shown what a man with such 
 handicap could accomplish, when he had to go so far to do it, and 
 meet his rivals on their native soil and so far outstrip so many of his 
 colleagues. If the demonstration in Trenton shall have given some 
 such inspiration to youth there and elsewhere, its results may be in 
 the aggregate greater even than those of the man who was thus 
 signally honored. 
 
 DAILY CITIZEN, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 A statue to the late John A. Roebling was unveiled in Trenton, 
 New Jersey, yesterday in the presence of ten thousand people. 
 Trenton honored this man as her most distinguished citizen, al- 
 though his cradle stood in Germany. Roebling founded in Tren- 
 ton the great wire and cable works which employ over six thousand 
 hands, but his chief claim to fame rests on the reputation which 
 came to him as the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge. Forty years 
 have elapsed since Roebling planned this bridge, but it still remains 
 unsurpassed in symmetry of design, in utility and in beauty. 
 
 Emerson's ideal of beauty, which springs from the useful, no- 
 where in the public monuments of this city finds a more apt expres- 
 sion than in this wonderful Brooklyn Bridge. 
 
 Roebling did not live to see the execution of his design in stone 
 and steel, but his name is forever associated with it. 
 
 A great man, the late William C. Kingsley, gave Roebling the 
 opportunity to make his name immortal. Kingsley, who came to 
 Brooklyn in his youth and prospered here, wished to do something
 
 59 
 
 for the city which had treated him so kindly, and his beneficience 
 took the form of the Brooklyn Bridge. Kingsley, in common with 
 most successful men, had a positive genius for selecting the right 
 aids. He interested Stranahan and Murphy in his project, and 
 picked out Roebling for his engineer. 
 
 Brooklyn, which owes so much to Roebling and Kingsley, has 
 not seen fit to honor them as other cities would have done. The 
 bridge plaza, secured at an expense of millions, offered a fitting loca- 
 tion for monuments to the man who conceived the idea and the man 
 who designed the bridge. Instead it was turned into a railroad 
 yard, disfigured by the ugly pillars of the elevated railroad. 
 
 Perhaps now that Trenton has shown the way Brooklyn may still 
 repay its lasting debt to the memory of Roebling and Kingsley. 
 
 DAILY EAGLE, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 Trenton has unveiled a beautiful monument to John A. Roebling, 
 whose noblest memorial here spans the East river. In the glory of 
 its stone towers the old bridge will remain without a peer so long as 
 economy dictates the construction of skeleton steel columns which 
 are as strong and as serviceable as they are devoid of dignity and 
 grace. 
 
 ELECTRICAL WORLD, New York. 
 
 The past 50 years have unquestionably been an "age of wire." 
 Electricity has in some respects supplanted cable haulage, but while 
 the present civilization lasts it looks as though the general uses of 
 wire rope would increase and extend. Meantime electricity 
 itself is causing a greater and greater demand for wire and cable and 
 is broadly based upon their use. In this field of wire and cable 
 manufacture, one or two great personalities have dominated, and at 
 the very head stood John A. Roebling, altogether a genius and a 
 great engineer. Few men have left a deeper imprint on their day 
 and on industry generally than did he ; and it is altogether fit and 
 proper that in Trenton, where he called such vast manufacturing 
 establishments into existence, employing thousands of people, there 
 should have been set up last week a noble and dignified statue to his 
 memory. The life work of Roebling was altogether beneficial to 
 this country and to humanity, and the man himself was a fine spirit. 
 The world would be better for more leaders like him.
 
 60 
 
 ENGINEERING RECORD, New York. 
 
 John A. Roebling occupied such a distinguished position as an 
 engineer, manufacturer and public spirited citizen that a statue of 
 him has been erected in Cadwalader Park, in Trenton. With the 
 exception of the statue of General Greene at Gettysburg, the bust 
 of Alexander Holley in New York, the statue unveiled at the New 
 Jersey capital on Tuesday of this week, Ericson's statue in New 
 York, and the statue of General Meade at Gettysburg, it will be 
 hard to find any such memorials of American engineers in con- 
 spicuous places. A few American engineers have had small cities 
 named after them, but as a rule their fame must rest on the connec- 
 tion of their names with great works. Consequently the signal 
 honor paid to Roebling's memory by the City of Trenton and men 
 eminent in the public affairs of New Jersey is most gratifying. 
 
 RECORD, Troy, N. Y. 
 
 The erection of a statue by the citizens of Trenton, New Jersey, 
 to John A. Roebling, the man who built the Brooklyn bridge, is 
 notable because it awards a lasting memorial to one of a class of 
 men who are rarely remembered in this way. The builder and the 
 mechanical genius have never appealed to the public. It is the poet 
 and the statesmen who gain the marble tributes. Perhaps it is just 
 as well. The monuments of these men are in their works. Chris- 
 topher Wren, the architect and builder, is buried in St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, the masterpiece of all the churches he erected. Over the 
 inner north doorway is a tablet containing this epitaph : " Si monu- 
 mentum requiris, circumspice : " "If you seek for a monument, 
 look about you." 
 
 TRIBUNE, Scranton, Pa. 
 
 The unveiling of a statue to the memory of John A. Roebling, 
 the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, at Trenton the other day was a 
 deserved tribute to great genius. John A. Roebling was not a war- 
 rior or a statesman. Before the completion of the great span that 
 first linked Manhattan to Long Island, he was practically unknown. 
 Yet this modest wire manufacturer paved the way for undertakings 
 undreamt of when the work of laying foundations for the piers of 
 the big bridge began.
 
 61 
 
 At the birth of Roebling's scheme to span the East river, the city 
 of Brooklyn seemed like a distant suburb to those who were obliged 
 to travel by ferry boats and slow horse cars. The opening of the 
 Brooklyn Bridge, even before the advent of trolley and elevated 
 cars, made the trip to Brooklyn only a matter of a few minutes, and 
 the structure has borne millions of travelers since. 
 
 The sinking of the tubes under the East river has made it possible 
 for the business man to get to and from his work more quickly 
 than by the bridge. But this great span was the first step in the 
 line of progress that has by rapid transit brought many neighboring 
 towns within the city of Greater New York. The Brooklyn Bridge 
 stands to-day a magnificent monument to the genius and energy of 
 one of America's foremost sons of progress. 
 
 TELEGRAM, Bridgeport, Conn. 
 
 The erection of a statue to the memory of John A. Roebling, who 
 built the Brooklyn Bridge and laid the foundation of the immense 
 wire cable enterprises at Trenton is regarded with satisfaction by 
 those who desire to see the forces which are revolutionizing the mod- 
 ern world receive their due meed of acknowledgment. It is a pity 
 that the figure of the great bridge builder could not have commanded 
 some central position upon his supreme achievement instead of being 
 placed in the New Jersey city. It is, however, none the less a thing 
 for which to be grateful and a sign that the world is growing wiser. 
 
 The decline of art and literature is a disputed commonplace of 
 the schools ; but the intellectual rise of the engineer and the crafts- 
 man has taken place almost unnoted. The common everyday needs 
 of the world are now met upon such a stupendous scale that they 
 who grapple with them must possess all the fire, insight and strength 
 of imagination which used to be considered the especial dower of 
 poets and painters. They must see the thing they wish to do in 
 clear vision long before even the plans for it take actual shape, they 
 must give their lives to their work and be willing to lose them in its 
 service. There must be an element of selfishness in their great am- 
 bition ; some sense of the advancement their work or their invention 
 will confer upon the race must sustain and uplift them in their fight 
 with fortune. Then when the ship or the bridge is planned or the 
 machine which is almost human in its fine workings is ready to be 
 built or operated they are helpless until they find craftsmen of the
 
 62 
 
 same high quality as themselves to carry out their ideas. It is the 
 glory of the age that such are rarely if ever wanting. The skilled 
 mechanic of the present loves and understands his work in the spirit 
 which dominated the great wonder workers of the past. He is their 
 lineal successor, and like them, he toils none the less faithfully be- 
 cause the work he has wrought bears no record of his name. 
 
 The more than six thousand workmen who formed a guard of 
 honor at the unveiling of the Roebling statue are the necessary com- 
 plement of such men as the famous engineer who so gallantly con- 
 quered what was then believed to be impossible. They are slowly 
 coming to their kingdom ; but it is surely awaiting them. 
 
 MANUFACTURER'S RECORD, Baltimore, Md. 
 
 The recent unveiling in Trenton, N. J., of a bronze statue, 
 which was erected by popular subscription to the memory of John 
 A. Roebling, is of peculiar and noteworthy significance, as it is not 
 only indicative of the high honor and esteem in which the memory 
 of his worth as a man and citizen is held, but also is a fitting tribute 
 to the creative genius of the man who founded one of the most 
 important industrial establishments of the city and of the country, 
 and who by his wonderful engineering abilities attracted the atten- 
 tion of the whole world. This event, however, has a still greater 
 significance, in that it centers attention on the freedom of an indus- 
 trial system under which the growth of a legitimate enterprise was 
 made possible, and it is a strong object-lesson to those who would 
 strike at the heart of such a system and throw so many restrictions 
 around it that in the future it would become impossible for any in- 
 dustrial establishment to enjoy a healthy and proper growth and 
 keep pace with the development of the country. 
 
 The history of the company's growth and broad policies finds its 
 counterpart in the history of nearly every one of the country's large 
 industrial establishments, which have been influential in making 
 this nation supreme in such activities. But with all this in mind 
 there are those, and they are in great numbers in this country, who 
 cannot or will not see the picture of the present growth of our lead- 
 ing industries and the broad effect they have had upon national pros- 
 perity, but look only on the smaller one showing the original and 
 cramped quarters of a new-born enterprise, or, in other words, they 
 refuse to acknowledge that the great growth of these large businesses
 
 63 
 
 have had a wholesome influence upon the country's affairs. There 
 are those who will not give credit to the industries which are pro- 
 viding employment at good wages, steadily increasing in recent 
 years, to millions of the people, for the opportunities they are hold- 
 ing out to young men to develop their talents. This narrow- 
 minded view becomes dangerous to the country when it is embodied 
 in practical agitation. For that menaces the industrial freedom 
 which is the foundation of the great development of this country in 
 all lines of endeavor. It was this broad freedom that attracted John 
 A. Roebling to this country.
 
 771 
 
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